


What Would The Truth Say

by ahandsomebabe



Category: Ripper Street
Genre: Abberline is cop dad, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amelia Frayn is also gay, Canon up until season 3 episode 5, Homer Jackson centric, Jackmund is what we do here, M/M, Sorry Not Sorry, analysis of Susan/Jackson as an abusive relationship, and tries to figure out what went wrong when Reid left that morning, because I say so, eventual buddy cop duo Drake and Jackson, fellow queer ally Fred Best, in this essay I will conclude that Susan is terrible for Jackson, in which Homer Jackson does not get drunk in a bar but instead saves Reid's life, oh yeah FRED BEST LIVES in this series, seriously if thats your ship you ARE NOT going to like this, so if thats your flagship maybe don't read this, we follow the same plot of that season with Some Changes, with MLA citations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 03:24:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18562918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahandsomebabe/pseuds/ahandsomebabe
Summary: Homer Jackson has a long, sordid history of coming to obvious realizations at the most inopportune moments.He fell in love with Caitlin Swift the day he killed a man to set her free.And he realizes he's been in love with Inspector Edmund Reid since the man made him the John Hopkins in Whitechapel, on the day the inspector is found with a bullet to the head.Or, a What If Jackson did not get piss drunk with a dead pig, but instead rushed to save Reid's life?(George of the Jungle narration: No gays die in this series, they just get really big boo boos.)





	What Would The Truth Say

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is beta read by Dasha, and its existence is entirely thanks to her. She dragged me down this historical gay rabbit hole, and now here we are. 
> 
> Thanks darling, you're a gift to the world.

Homer Jackson has a long, sordid history of coming to obvious realizations at the most inopportune moments.

He fell in love with Caitlin Swift the day he killed a man to set her free.

And he realizes he's been in love with Inspector Edmund Reid since the man has made him the John Hopkins in Whitechapel, on the day the inspector is found with a bullet to the head.

He really should be better at this sort of thing. But Homer Jackson has not been one to learn life lessons easily. Caitlin always said he was a man with more science than sense. In this, she is not wrong.

Given the swiftness of the thing, Jackson thought he would have known sooner. But no, it's not until Edmund Reid is already delivered into the care of Susan’s hospital that someone thinks to notify Homer Jackson that there has been an incident. That his boss and friend has been mortally wounded.

Homer Jackson has never leapt out of bed and thrown on a coat so fast since he crossed the pond.

He arrives to Edmund Reid on an operating table, being seen to by Susan's best doctor; already there is a crowd forming outside in the street. She's busy bandaging up Reid's side when Jackson hangs his hat and coat at the door.

There's a moment where the woman looks up at him from her work, where Jackson thinks he might have to argue with her to let him stay. He called her a liar and a conspirator to aiding his ex-wife in kidnapping Reid’s daughter just the day before.

Yet regardless of who shot Edmund Reid, it was Jackson who put him in the line of fire. Jackson who gave him the final puzzle piece to the mystery of the train crash, when all Edmund Reid wanted to do was take his daughter to a village by the sea and never look back.

Instead she says, "Your timing is impeccable, doctor. I could use an extra pair of hands with this next bit of business."

Jackson swallows hard. He's seen a lot of nasty wounds. And he's never seen anyone walk away from a shot to the torso and the head.

He's never operated on anyone he loved either. That is new.

"What are we lookin' at?"

"Inspector Reid has been shot twice, once in the side, and once here at the base of the skull. Your Reid is a lucky man. The shot to the torso was easily removed and hit no vital organs. I've cleaned it, sewed it shut, and wrapped him up. I fear he may still go into sepsis due to infection, he's lost a lot of blood. The shot to the skull is just above his spine. An inch lower, I can't say what would become of him."

Jackson swallows again, wipes the sweat off his forehead from the run over, and immediately sets about washing his hands. He even tries to get the grime out from under his fingernails. Jackson will take no chances, no tonight.

It’s so early in the morning Jackson has barely slept two hours. How could this happen? It’s not right, Edmund Reid being shot before folks are sitting down to their morning breakfast.

It’s not right that Jackson drew a gun on Edmund Reid over the life of his ex-wife. The woman who used him, who lied to Reid about his own daughter, only for Edmund Reid to be found shot in Susan Hart’s home.

When he said goodbye to Edmund Reid, he had not meant it to be goodbye forever. And he does not mean to let it be so now.

"Right. Do you know how to make a burr hole?"

The woman nods. She doesn't grow paler, which for that Jackson gives a point, but she does stiffen. "I know the theory, but I've never performed it."

"Well, today's your lucky day. See, we try to fetch that bullet out now, it's going to move. And the last thing we want is that hunk o' metal doin' any more damage than it's dealt already. Reid's a brilliant man, I'd have him stay that way when he wakes."

The woman washes her hands again as she says. "So, we drill the hole first to relieve the pressure. Then we fetch the bullet out, once the pressure has gone down."

"Precisely. It'll give us more room to work. The trick is, it's going to hurt like hell should Reid wake up. One false move from the inspector, and we won't be doing a burr hole. That point, we'll have a lobotomy on our hands."

"He's been out since he came here. I've been monitoring his heart and breath, they're very faint but there."

Jackson shrugs. "Laudanum, just the same."

The woman nods and acquiesces, measuring the proper dose. But when she begins to open Reid's mouth, Jackson is there taking the spoon from her.

"I'll get it. You know your surgery better than I do, get everything we'll need, quick as you like."

She does so as Jackson turns back to Reid. The man looks white as a sheet, but he is not dead. His lips are pink still, not blue. Gently, Jackson opens his mouth and coaxes the spoon inside. He has to close Reid's mouth manually, and gently caress his throat to get him to swallow. This is not the way Jackson ever saw himself touching Reid for the first time.

"You rest, alright?" Jackson whispers. "I've got you. I'm goin' to set this right."

The moment the woman appears with her tools is the same one Sergeant Drake appears at the door, slamming it open and out of breath.

"Christ! Is he?..."

Jackson shakes his head. The female doctor shrinks back a step. Drake has done a fine job startling her.

"Don't pay him any mind," Jackson turns to tell her. "That's just the way of him. Bennet Drake, this is Doctor..."

"Doctor Amelia Frayn, sir," she said.

"Don't ask her to shake your hand, Drake," Jackson huffs. He itches for a smoke, but for once in his life, he will not. "She just washed up. Now, we gotta see to Reid. And what we're about to do, it ain't pretty. But it's necessary to save his life. So, you gonna stay and keep a strong stomach, or you can wait outside."

Doctor Frayn reclaims her place, taking two long strides to Reid's bedside. She has straps in hand and she's securing one across Reid's shoulders, then a second at his hips, beneath the shot to the side. "We need to begin immediately. Every second is precious."

"Right, I'm," Drake glances frantically from the Inspector to Jackson, to the Doctor Frayn, and back again, fumbling with this hat in his hands. "I'll leave you to it," and he leaves as quickly as he had come. But Jackson knows Drake; the man isn’t going far.

"Right." Jackson settles, claps his hands together. "Trephine?"

"Where shall we place the holes?"

Jackson is still trying to suss that out. They need to drain, and they need to drain nice and quick like. But hit the pressure head on, and it will burst.

"Edges of the raised area, one on each bottom edge," Jackson indicates, then sets about unscrewing the cap at the headboard, kicking the bucket into place beneath the table's drainage. His ex wife had seen this place outfitted just as the one he took his learnings at. Caitlin always was clever. At times, this is the problem.

But he cannot think of her now, not here. The only thing that matters is the wound. The only thing that matters is making sure the rest of Reid's skull stays in one piece.

"Alright, now, the swelling is in the very first layer. We don't need to go far, just expose the dura. Should be just four cranks of the wheel. You be quiet, and you'll hear the sound of the drill breaking into the skull. Just like picking a lock."

"I'd wager these contents far more valuable than any heist," she says as she dabs the spot with iodine before picking up the drill. She closes her eyes, and takes a breath. "If I do the first, will you do the second?"

Jackson nods. It is the last thing he wants to do, but he came, didn't he? Reid called for aid, and he came, as always. Funny, he never thought of himself as the hound. But then, Reid did call him Susan’s creature just yesterday. The words still sting, moreso for the truth of them. And what had he told Reid? That he thought her innocent in all this. His wife is no more innocent than he is. Turned toxic in her pursuits.

He tries to breathe as Dr. Frayn takes up the drill to the point furthest from the gunshot. She steadies herself for a moment, pressing the drill as tight to the site as she dares, and turns. The drill is a powerful piece of work; she whispers the count. At four, there's a very quiet click. When she removes the drill, a bit of bone no larger than a pebble comes away. Blood begins to pour out immediately, but slowly. It's not enough. They need that second hole.

Dr. Frayn removes the bit of bone with tweezers and hands it to him. He dabs at the site of the second incision with iodine, and presses the drill to the skull without giving it too much thought, the same way Jackson does most things. Don't think, just get it done. Count to four.

The moment he hears the bone break, blood spurts.

"Fuck!" he jumps back, and for a desperate second, Jackson has the urge to cover it with the iodine soaked gauze in his left hand. But this is right, this it the burr hole doing its work. Even as it stains his shirt.

"How long do you think before we should try removing the bullet?"

Again, Jackson shrugs "At least thirty minutes." The clock on the wall shows that it's just after 8:30. “Might have time for a cup of coffee. Any chance you got any?”

Dr. Frayn opens her mouth to answer, when another woman dressed in a similar dark work dress opens the surgery door. There’s blood on her hands.

“Miss Frayn, you are needed urgently. Miss Michaelson, mam, she’s just got into labor. But the baby's not right; its turned the wrong way round. If you don’t hurry, mam--”

She doesn’t finish, but Jackson knows the rest just the same. That baby's going to suffocate inside its own mother if Frayn doesn’t do something.

“Go,” Jackson says. “Go! There’s no trading of lives here, not today.”

After a moment of staring at him like the good lady doctor means to dissect him next, she goes to the sink to wash her hands as quick as she can. She looks to her tools, glances about over the surgery. It's the same thing Jackson does before he leaves his work for the evening; everything in place, tools sterilized for the next day.

"You tell me where you keep your pressure cooker, I'll have everything right by the time you return."

She points to the left side of the room. "Bottom cabinet, farthest to the right. Good luck, and please, do make your notes," she indicates to a notebook and pencil where she's clearly been recording all of her findings and proceedings thus far.

"I will," he promises, though he's not sure how legible they will be. "And Reid will be fine, I promise you. Send Sergeant Drake in, would you?" he asks as she rushes out with her own nurse in tow.  "He's as good a nursemaid as any."

Sergeant Bennet Drake steps inside just as quickly as Dr. Frayn steps out. He looks none too amused. Like he'd punch him if Jackson didn't have the Inspector's blood all over him. "I heard that."

"Good, then you know what I need you for," he indicates to where Reid lies, the fluids from his head slowing to a drip.

Drake hesitates to come any closer. When he does, he sees the bucket with a watery level of blood, follows it to Reid's skull, and turns almost as white as the man on the table.

"Should he be?"

Jackson nods, rubs at his forehead with his free hand. "Yeah, yeah, it's to relieve the pressure. I promise you, that ain't the blood you want in him. It's in the wrong place."

"Right," Drake nods, but the tone doesn't sound like Drake believes him. Which is fair, Jackson surmises, bleeding a man to save his life. "So what do you need me here for?"

"I still need to pull the bullet out, but I can't do that until the pressure goes down. Should be a half hour, maybe more. Can't rush it, we get too eager and that bullet is goin' to go somewhere we're not goin' to like."

Drake slumps into the opposite chair, takes a flask from his coat, and takes a very long drag. In an uncharacteristic moment of sympathy, he holds it out to Jackson.

The last time they had a drink together, Drake crushed a shot glass in one hand and slammed Jackson's head into the bartop. Left his bell rung for the next day. "I'm alright, thank you," he says.

Drake squints. "You're most certainly not. I thought I'd sooner be in the ground than see Homer Jackson turn down a drink."

Jackson takes a long drag, letting the smoke fill his lungs as he wonders how honest he should be. "If I screw up, one false move, and Reid's a goner. The fact that he's breathin' now is a goddamn miracle, and it tells me the bullet ain't that deep. He'd be dead hours ago if it were, probably would've breathed his last maybe..." He takes another drag, tries to think like it's any other case, any other person on that table. "Fifteen minutes, tops."

"Christ."

"I don't think he'll be any help here, but if you're a prayin' man, be my guest. I'll take all the help I can get."

When Drake goes quiet, Jackson thinks he actually is. He lights up another cigarette and goes to the sink for a glass of water--not coffee, as much as he craves it; caffeine could make his hands shake--and as he's drinking out of an Erlenmeyer flask, Reid's eyelids move. The telltale twitch of consciousness.

Jackson is by his side in an instant, flask left by the sink. "Reid, Reid can you hear me?"

Reid groans, but his eyes still don't open. Jackson laughs, feels himself light up like he hasn't known how to smile in months.

Drake is on his feet. "Inspector Reid!" he shouts.

Jackson puts a finger to his lips. "Not too loud, you startle him and things could go poorly."

"Apologies," Drake says, taking a cautious step closer to the operating table. "Reid, sir, it's Sergeant Drake."

"Yeah, and your favorite Yankee clap doctor, doctor fancy pants."

There's a cough from Reid that Jackson suspects is actually a laugh.

Drake looks at Jackson like he's the true lord and savior. "Did you just?"

Jackson puts his hands up like he's been caught in a till. "Hey, you were the one prayin'. Maybe this is your doin'." He leans closer to Reid before he speaks again. "Reid, I need you to listen to me. You've been shot. I've got you secured to a table right now, because if either one of us makes a wrong move, you're gonna have a tough go of bein' so damn smart all of the time when you get off of this table. Don't panic, alright? You just stay calm, and let me fix you. We're almost through this."

There's a sound like a mumble from Edmund Reid, but he doesn't have the strength to get his lips to move. It's all Jackson can do to tear his gaze off him, wanting nothing more than for Reid to open his eyes and look back at him, to look at the egregious head wound. The burr holes are barely leaking any fluid, and the raise around the bullet wound is certainly smaller.

Jackson reaches up to turn the lights overhead up higher, burning the light brighter.

"Drake, get me that magnifying glass," he points to the tray of tools just a few feet away.

Drake does so without complaint, not even a glare.

Jackson smiles up at him from where he's leaning over Reid's injuries. "Thank you, nurse."

There's Drake's glare, at least somethings can remain the same. "You're welcome, doctor fancy pants. Now what?"

"Well, let's have a look."

Jackson leans as close as he dares. "Reid, if you headbutt me, you're gonna feel a lot worse than me," he grumbles. The bullet is easy to find, easier without excess tissue locking it into place. It's not deep, barely lodged into the bone. Just enough to cause a fuss.

"This wasn't close range."

"What?" Drake says. "You're forensicating _now_?"

"Yeah, cause like it or not, after this, someone's gotta find out who shot him," Jackson huffs while he scribbles out the notes, checks the time and records that too. "The bullet didn't go very deep, which is good news for us. That also tells us that it didn't have quite as much force as it hit, which means--"

"That whoever shot him did so from afar."

Jackson nods. "Exactly. Not sharp shooter range, nothin' fancy, but not too close either."

"But do we really need to worry bout all that?" Drake asks. "Surely once Reid comes to, after this mess is sorted, he can tell us what happened."

Jackson shrugs, washing his hands to remove the residue from the cigarettes, and looks over the tools Doctor Frayn left for him. Sure enough, Susan's kept them well stocked. There's multiple tools for getting out a bullet, including a steel elevator, a tribulcon, and various kinds of bullet forceps.

"He might not remember a thing. Just because the bullet is shallow does not mean the brain isn't damaged. Reid's taken a knock, we don't know how he'll be when he wakes."

Reid, who stopped making any noise. When Jackson looks down, Drake's gaze follows, and both of them find that Reid has fallen silent again.

Jackson takes up the tribulcon, and it's then he realizes he doesn't have enough hands.

"Drake, wash your hands."

"...are you serious?"

"Did I stutter?"

Drake does, and comes to stand just behind him, leaning over Jackson's shoulder. It's just like any other day, Jackson tells himself. Except today his patient has a heartbeat.

"I'm going to use this," he holds up the tribulcon, "to spread open the wound. Once I have it right, I'll need you to hold it there. Then I'm going to pry the bullet out. You gotta be steady, and for God's sake don't move your hand. Think you can handle that?"

"Well, it's not like I have a choice in the matter, aye?"

"No, you really don't, if you want Reid to come out of this whole," Jackson says, getting the tribulcon just where he wants it.  "Reid, I'm going to get the bullet out. This would be a very good time for you to stay off in lala land, where you can't do yourself any harm."

Then he spreads the wound. There's a bit more blood, and a groan from their patient. Jackson thinks his heart stops as he freezes, save to look down at Reid. His eyes are still shut, mouth unmoving.

"Drake, hold it right here," Jackson says, and to Drake's benefit, he does.

Now the fun part. Jackson needs to pry the bullet out of the bone, without doing any more damage to the skull.

"Alright boys, nobody move an inch," Jackson says, taking a breath to steel himself before going in.

The bullet is not small, not a lady's gun. But it's not a mishmash of shards either. It's largely one piece, mashed against and into the back of Reid's skull. Jackson ducks under Drake to get a better angle, and tries again.

It's frustrating work. The steel elevator slides against the metal of the bullet. Jackson needs to find an edge to pry it free. For a moment, he thinks he has one. Then Drake's arm starts to shake, and Jackson is forced to take hold of the tribulcon. The small vibration draws a bit of blood to the surface.

"Drake, gauze with a bit of iodine. It's right there, on the table. Just hold the gauze snug on the bottle, tip for one moment, and hand it to me."

He doesn't even pause, Drake just does, quick as he can. Drake takes reign of the tribulcon again, this time with his other arm. The trading of it for the gauze feels like disarming those bombs in the chemical store. Jackson dabs gently, making the wound a bit more sterile and removing the excessing fluid.

It's just the trick. The next time Jackson tries with the steel elevator, it pops free.

"Don't move," Jackson says, and he's not sure if he's ordering Reid or Drake or the two of them. He rushes to the table for the bullet forceps with a loop on either side, dropping the bloodied steel elevator with a clatter.

In seconds, the bullet is out. Finally. Jackson looks at the clock, and finds himself startled. It's barely been five minutes, but it feels like an eternity.

"Good work, Drake."

"Likewise...doctor fancy pants."

Jackson levels him with a look, can't help the smile that breaks over his face. "You've been spending too much time with Abberline."

"No," Drake huffs, as close as Jackson suspects he gets to a laugh, "I've been spending too much time with you." But Drake leans closer even as he's mocking him, studying the bullet and the metal device that retrieved it.

"Revolver." Jackson says.

"That's the gun we found at the scene."

Jackson sets the bullet on the tray. Later, he'll put it in an evidence dish, seal it up for H Division. For now, he gets to clean up Edmund Reid.

“Oh God.”

“What?” Drake asks, eyes wide, looking from the Reid on the table and back to Jackson again. “What is it now?”

"If the Inspector is here, where is Mathilda?”

“His girl? He found his girl?!”

Jackson nods, his eyes wet. He wipes it away with his wrist, the one square inch that doesn’t have Reid’s blood on it. “Yeah. Yeah, I met her this morning, Drake. God, she’s got his eyes. You weren’t kidding about that red hair either.”

He watches as Drake’s face sours from shock to suspicion. “You went to see Reid this morning. Why.”

“I had evidence, gotten from Best; he’d come to me previously with his suspicions about Susan’s lawyer, Capshaw. I went to him when Susan lied to my face about kidnapping Reid’s daughter. He gave me the record of Capshaw transferring US bearer bonds to pounds sterling. The stolen bonds.”

“And you sent him after it?!”

“I didn’t know his girl was there! I didn’t know, Drake, goddamnit. What happened? What did you find at Susan’s?”

“What did you do with Edmund Reid this morning?”

“You first.”

Drake snarls, and Jackson has a moment of thinking he might about to be thrown into something. Bennet Drake is to be the next Inspector, perhaps he’s learned Reid’s moves in advance.

“We found Capshaw, dead on the floor, shot by a shotgun, pistol about him. And Edmund Reid but a few feet away on the floor, bleeding out from two gunshot wounds. Miss Hart summoned help immediately, had him brought here. And you, before this mess?”

“He said he was taking Mathilda and leaving Whitechapel. I thought...damnit, I had thought maybe he would pass it along to you or Abberline on his way out the door. I didn’t think…” Jackson takes a breath and almost wipes Reid’s blood all over his face. He needs to wash his hands.

“Edmund Reid wouldn’t bring his daughter into this,” Drake says as Jackson scrubs to get it all off. It’s under his fingernails, in the bends of his knuckles.

“No, he wouldn’t,” Jackson says as he finally turns the sink off, watching the pink water run down the drain. “He would have brought her somewhere. Can you think of any place they’d go? Someone he trusts…”

Jackson thinks of it just as he turns around, but Drake says it first.

“Councilor Cobden.”

Jackson nods. “I need to stay here, look after him. He needs bandaging up, and he can’t be left alone. He wakes wrong he’s goin’ to be in for a world of hurt. And he can’t be left with strangers either, Reid needs to see someone he knows when he comes to.”

Drake looks at Reid, frowns. Those wrinkles in his forehead bunching up together, weighing the choice. Jackson doesn’t know what, maybe the choice to punch him in the head for giving Reid the lead that put him here.

“You did not shoot Edmund Reid.”

Jackson feels his eyebrows go up almost on their own accord. “Are you lookin' for an alibi or stating a fact?”

“The latter. Jackson, what Reid said, you are not her creature. I know this. What you did, before I left--”

“I did what you asked me to.”

“You did what was right, at a time when the right thing didn’t come easy. I will go and find Reid’s girl, and you will stay and see to it she has a father to come back to.”

Jackson nods, blinks away the moisture that rises in his eyes. “You find her, and you keep her safe. The case can wait.”

Drake is gone without saying another word.

"Well, I guess it's just us now, hmm?" Jackson says as he sets up the gauze and the iodine, wiping away all of the blood and fluids that have leaked from Reid's skull today. The bucket on the floor doesn't have much in it, but it's a very big bucket. "You gonna do any more chucklin' at my expense, you're free to do so. We're just about out of the woods here, Inspector."

Reid doesn't make a sound, but when Jackson looks he swears Reid's mouth twitches. The steady rise and fall of his chest is almost loud in the quiet room.

"Well, I'm glad you're havin' a laugh wherever you're off at. Because back home you've just about given me a heart attack," he says as he threads the needle with silk thread. "I'm gonna stitch you up now, so you stay calm, so I can keep it nice and tidy. Can't have you gettin' a scar now, you'll scare off all the ladies."

There's a grumble as the needle first breaks the skin, his free hand pinching the edges of the wound together as he sews it shut. "Yeah, I know, you got a lot of scars. I seen 'em, remember? You came from work in a foul mood from that damn shoulder of yours, which I will remind you, you only injured because you don't take care of the damn thing. Funny how as soon as I started givin' you medical treatment, your shoulder stopped troubling you so grievously.”

Reid's medical treatment involved a daily massage of the scar tissue to break up the stiffness and help Reid regain movement, then strength building exercises for Reid to do himself. That Jackson gave this man a massage every day for a month and never once had a thought that he might care deeply about Reid is a true testament to Jackson's lack of sense.

The last stitch makes for a count of eight. Jackson snips off the thread, gives it one last precursory wipe down with the iodine, then trades the needle and thread for the large roll of gauze.

He falls quiet as he begins the wrapping the gauze around Reid's head, layer by layer. In all things with Reid's head now, care must be taken. It has to be just snug enough to stay in place, but not so tight that it will aggravate the pressure in Reid's skull. Precarious. That's the word for it.

The whole damn thing is precarious. It has set loose a torrent of sensations Jackson has not yet dealt with for some time. He prefers to think, and then drink, rather than to feel more than he has to. Watching Susan make one dark move after the next these past years has, at times, made him wish he could forget feeling anything for her at all. Just as she has so swiftly forgotten him, with Duggan dead and his holdings her own. She's become the business magnate she always wanted to be. He wonders if she realizes how closely it aligns her to the father she hates so.

Reid has a darkness in him, just as all men do, but it's not as such. He cares more for others than he does himself. He would have the truth of the thing, rather than an easy thing. The man is a good boss, and an even better friend. Reid was right that day, when he said there were sides of their lives known to few others. He's lived with him, he works with him. After a point, Jackson is certain he should have grown tired of the Inspector's presence. But he hadn't. He still doesn't. Though he hid it rather well, he couldn't have been happier than the day when Reid found him at Mimi’s place of business and bade him to come back to that cop shop.

The cop shop where Reid had a fancy dead room outfitted just for him.

"Christ, Reid," Jackson huffs around the unlit cigarette in his mouth, "If that's your idea of wooing, well... I gotta say I'm impressed. Most folks don't get a whole room before a first date," he smiles as he gently ties off the gauze.

Pulling up a chair, Homer Jackson collapses into it, and finally takes a long drought of whiskey, and lights his cigarette. The clock reads fifteen till eleven in the morning.

"If Drake tells you I abstained from drinking long enough to see you through the other side of this...I'm never going to hear the end of it. But hey, you're a smart man, Reid, you'll figure it out."

Hooking the second chair with his foot, Jackson swiftly slides it over so he can put his legs up on it. He's right along Reid from head to toe.

"Don't you worry, I ain't goin anywhere. Not till you can open your damn eyes, get you and your daughter the hell out of here."

Regardless of Jackson's feelings for him, he won't ask him to stay. The man just got shot. He's sure that when Reid wakes, the last thing he'll want to do is remain here. And that's just fine. So long as Reid is safe and at peace, Jackson can live with that.

For awhile, Jackson almost enjoys the quiet. His flask is half empty, and he says nothing, focusing solely on the sound of Reid’s breathing.

But of course, a half empty flask makes Homer realize there is something to be said for a Reid who’s quiet.

“Ya know, it occurs to me as you’re lying there, that there remains to be a great opportunity for a conversation that won’t end with you throwing me into a wall. Or removing me from your house, again,” Jackson says as he lights another cigarette and kicks his boots up by Reid's on the operating table.

“That night, when you came home and threw me into a wall, I was trying to tell you that I wasn’t trying to keep you from doing your job. But I do have my secrets, some of which you know, some you don’t. You and I live long enough, perhaps I’ll share the rest. Bit by bit.”

He finds himself rubbing his forehead with one hand, tapping out ash on the floor with another. That fight had been their worst to date.

Jackson had come home that night three years ago, setting up Duggan successfully to be killed, his brother stealing the money from the diamond exchange, Susan thanking him and throwing him out for good in the same turn of phrase, to try and clean up the mess his brother had made of Reid's home. He had nearly had the last of the glass swept up onto a bit of old paper to be tossed with the ashes of last night's fire when Reid had come in, looking worse than Jackson had ever seen him.

Jackson had thought he had the man placated well enough, sat on the couch with the nice Scotch that Reid had asked for--hidden behind his casebook on the Ripper murders--but then Reid had to go and be his usual perceptive self.

Reid began by stating that he hadn’t seen Jackson in a few days, which he had hoped to mean perhaps he had managed to patch things up with his wife. But then added that Jackson had barely said a word, which after some time about town was not at all like him. And so, Reid asked what it was that troubled him so.

Jackson shouldn’t have said a thing. Reid had just had to face down corruption in the police, the death of Hobbs, and had even implied after his first glass of Scotch that perhaps he and the Councilor were not so fit a match after all.

But Jackson needed his advice, he needed a friend, and so he told him. About Susan’s terrible business deal. His brother’s business--happy to report that said man was again long gone and unlikely to set foot in Whitechapel again--and of course the matter of Jackson fixing the whole thing. Only for Susan to throw him out again.

“Reid I...I’m at a loss, brother.”

“Indeed you are. This whole time I have been working to undo a corruption, a festering disease in my own work. And here you have been, using those very connections to your own ends.”

“Reid, you know I would never do anything to--”

But Jackson doesn’t even get the words out before Reid is upon him in the same manner as ever, snarling in his face, Jackson slammed into the wall via Reid’s massive hands on his waistcoat.

Jackson has trouble recalling everything that came after that. Yet Reid’s scathing remarks are scorched in his memory and will not fade, despite how much Jackson has drank since. He had called Jackson her creature then, just as he had yesterday. But until yesterday, Jackson had thought Reid was wrong.

He knows better now.

“Reid,” he begins again, taking the last drag from his cigarette before it's so low it nearly burns his calloused fingers, “I know you didn’t mean it. You were not yourself that night. And ah, well, I needed your council more than I was presently capable of being there for you.”

He puts the rest of the cigarette out on the floor, trying to push the details of that fight out of his mind just as quickly as he has recalled them in.

“You need to wake up, so I can apologize properly. For everything, for back then, and for yesterday. In a manner that doesn’t end with you tossin' me out on the street.”

Though at this present moment, a Reid who is physically capable of doing so is a notion that gives Jackson hope.

 

Homer wakes up to the feeling of someone shaking him. He reaches out with his right hand to stop them; his left is occupied. He had taken Reid’s tie, after inspecting it for gunpowder residue or blood spatter, and tied one end around Reid’s closest wrist and the other around his own arm. Jackson knew he couldn’t stay up all morning--two hours of sleep isn’t enough even for him--but if Reid has a fit Jackson needs to be sure he would wake up. This way, he’ll know if Reid goes into hysterics.

Jackson presumes he will be looking at Abberline, but the hand he grabs onto is far too young and delicate for that.

“Apologies, sir. I tried calling for you, but you refused to wake.”

“Few things do miss Frayn, don’t let it trouble you,” Jackson grumbles, letting go of her hand to rub the sleep from his eyes. He doesn’t look at her when he opens them; he goes straight to Reid, checking his breath and heartbeat. Both are still there, slow but present. He pauses a moment to listen to his breathing, which he should have done last night, he realizes. But there's no sound of labor, not the rasp of fluid in his lungs or the sound of any sort of internal hemorrhaging. Doctor Frayn was correct in her work, nothing major hit in his guts. Small mercies.

“That’s clever,” miss Frayn says as she looks over his notes. She is pointing to the tie without looking at him.

They are still bound together. Jackson hadn't even thought of it. He undoes the knot on his own wrist as he answers her inquiry. "Figured I'd doze off eventually. Least this way I'd be roused if Reid took a turn."

Miss Frayn nods and sets down the notes. The perk of having another surgeon in the room is there is no need to elaborate. No need to say that if Edmund Reid goes into hysterics, or worse, an epileptic fit, he isn't likely to ever come back at all.

"I've prepared a room for him," is what Miss Frayn says instead. "Unless you would like your friend to awaken bound to a surgical table."

No, the more comfortable the better. The waking of Reid could still go very badly. There is no peace here. Edmund Reid is in a precarious state and will remain as such for far longer than Homer can even fathom.

Jackson says, "Do you have a board?"

"One of my nurses is fetching it now," and with no further comment, Miss Frayn unlocks the wheels of the surgery table with a few swift kicks, and rolls Reid out of the operating room.

They barely make it around the corner before he hears the gruff tones that announce his mortal peril. Jackson has long since grown out of his fear of Reid; he has not outgrown his fear of Chief Inspector Abberline.

"Captain. Sergeant Drake said I might find you here."

Abberline looks the same way he always does--tired. He only ever makes himself known to Jackson and the rest of Leman Street nick when things have gone belly up. For the life of him, Jackson can’t detect an ounce of fear or concern in the man. He knows Abberline's got it, but the man schools it down even better than Reid. Though Jackson sees the likeness. For how long was Abberline Reid's mentor before the Ripper came along?

"We're moving Reid to his own room, Chief Inspector,”  he says.”You wanna word, follow me," and catches up with Miss Frayn in a few long strides. Abberline makes his way unhurriedly after them.

When Abberline rejoins them again, Jackson gets to look up just in time to watch the gentleman step out of the way, barely avoiding two nurses as they carry a longboard between them. It takes both nurses, Frayn, and Jackson to get the board gently under Reid. (Jackson says “Easy!” no less than a dozen times). Only then do they very gently but quickly move Reid from one bed to another. It's another five minutes of very delicate tugging and maneuvering till the board is out from under Reid once more.

Abberline stands against one wall, watching patiently. Frayn pulls a blanket up over Reid's unconscious form, while Jackson is checking the bandages around his head for any signs of blood with a tender care. He's relieved to see nothing is filled with red. When he delicately places his fingers on the back of Reid's head, it feels no warmer than the rest of him. No sign of infection, and the swelling feels lessened already. A smile makes its way over Jackson's face before he can school it, giddy and wild.

"Captain?" Abberline says from his corner.

"Reid's looking good, better than anticipated. Might wake sooner than my previous diagnosis came to conclude, if he keeps this up."

Miss Frayn lights up at this, as if Jackson’s smile is contagious. “This is wonderful news, Captain. Shall I inform the staff?”

Jackson shakes his head once. “You keep it to yourself and Reid’s kin for now. The last thing we need is Whitechapel thinking Reid’s gonna walk off this table, only to have him…” he finishes the phrase with a gesture of one hand. He can’t quite bring himself to say it. Not yet. Not when his hope has just sprung up anew.

Abberline takes two steps closer, but no further. "Captain, a word?"

Jackson glances from Abberline to the hallway. These are Susan's people. And he'd prefer the ex-wife that he only recently coupled with in a filthy alley not be privy to every detail of his life, especially as he knows so little of hers anymore. "Miss Frayn, mind givin' us the room for just a few moments?"

She nods. "I'll fetch some bandages, see to his side." She's even kind enough to close the door behind her.

The second the latch clicks, Abberline lays into him. "You're needed at Leman Street, Captain."

Captain. No fancy pants. No Yank. Abberline's fear is there in his words.

“You said you heard from Drake. Has he found her?”

“Mathilda? Yes, she’s fine. Still asleep. Drake remains with Cobden until she wakes to deliver the news. The moment it's done, he will return to work, where he is needed most. As are you.”

"I'm also needed here."

"You have been very lucky," Abberline begins, "that Edmund Reid is in the best care in this city. Your former wife spares no expense in her philanthropy here. You need to get back to work. Capshaw may be dead, but he leaves a God-awful mess in his wake, I shall see it brought to order and the truth of him discovered."

Jackson takes a deep breath and lets it out, rubbing at the lines between his temples. He needs coffee. And a smoke. Breakfast too, perhaps.  "As I have told Reid, you have other doctors."

"And as Reid has proclaimed to me numerous times, those drunk incompetents are not you."

For a time, neither man speaks, and the room falls eerily silent, save for the very quiet, faint breathing that signals Edmund Reid lives still.

"You know," Abberline says, the barest hint of mirth about his white beard, "there was a time I nearly fired Edmund Reid."

Jackson huffs a laugh as he lights up his first smoke of the day. "I find that hard to believe."

Abberline takes another step closer to the bed. Now Jackson can see the exhaustion behind the man's eyes is bone deep. He looks no better than Jackson feels. "It was over you."

At this, Jackson really laughs. "Now you're talkin' sense."

"Four years ago, H Division was awarded a small but fine sum to improve upon. We had planned on larger offices, straighten up the cells. This was the first time Reid mentioned that bloody library of his... Now imagine my surprise, when I return to find no new offices, no new cells, but instead a dead room fit to perform surgery on a toff."

Jackson never did ask how H Division found the funds to get outfitted for hot water. And in a dead room, no less. Jackson’s office is the only room in the whole cop house that has it.

"So I summon Inspector Reid to the office for a word on why we can eat off the floor of the dead room, yet barely fit three grown men round his desk. And he tells me you were the sole instrument to proving that Maude Thwaites was not in fact ripped. That the surgeon known as Homer Jackson could very well be the most brilliant man Reid has ever met, and he should have him serving Whitechapel through aiding our efforts here. He even offered to take a pay cut to see to your wages. Anything, Reid said, that he could do would be done to ensure that Homer Jackson could find his place at Leman Street."

Jackson, who put Edmund Reid in this bed instead of letting him go. The irony of it all. "And what did you tell him?"

"I told him I would only hire one more constable instead of the three we should have. And in the place of those two, a Sergeant's salary to be paid for one Homer Jackson. So long as you were worth your mettle, I would be obliged to see to it that you remain with us. Since that day, H Division has grown more efficient and more reliable than any other department in our quarter."

Jackson is speechless in the face of such a compliment. Reid risked his entire career just to secure Jackson’s employment within H Division.   

"I'll go, but there are some protocols we gotta follow here. First, at least one uniform at Reid’s door, two would be better. Second, someone Reid has long been familiar with needs to be by his bedside. There's no telling how he's gonna be when he wakes, but he might take comfort from a familiar face, even if he can't quite tell why. Our main diligence for Reid now is to keep him calm. He goes into hysterics, we might lose him yet. Third, if I'm not working, I am here. No exceptions."

Jackson does not anticipate Abberline will argue with the one thing he does. "Two men is more than H Division has to spare, Captain. Word is out about Edmund Reid, and already our borough looms to chaos. We work to break up the crowds before they spurn to action. And what makes you think Reid needs to be coppered for?"

"Cause," Jackson says, snuffing out his cigarette. "you've got no proof to offer that Capshaw did this. And right now," Jackson removes from his bright blue plaid waistcoat pocket the petri dish with the bullet inside, "I've got evidence that suggests otherwise."

Abberline frowns with his whole face, forehead creasing a dozen times over. "Wrong gun?"

"Haven't seen it yet, so I can't say. But Reid's injuries aren't that of a close up shot. Not the distance civilized men do converse. Now maybe I'm wrong, and Capshaw, the man who's had everyone else do his dirty work for him, finally got his hands red. But if I'm not, there's a shooter out there this very moment, who wants nothing more on this earth than to see to it that Edmund Reid cannot tell a soul who it is tried to kill him. You willin' to take that bet, with Inspector Reid's life?"

Abberline lets out a sigh, fiddles with the brim of his hat a moment. Homer wonders how long Abberline has worked with Reid. Long enough to pick up the habit from? Or is it just what all proper Brits do when they're put on the spot?

"Reid will have his protection, you have my word, so long as you get down to Leman Street and aid us in discovering how Reid got here in the first place."

"I just need someone to--" Jackson turns to look out the in hallway when he hears footsteps and the sound of women talking. He thinks it's one of the nurses talking to Frayn; their voices are so muffled beyond the closed door that it's not easy to make out who it is. For a terrifying moment, Jackson thinks he's about to come face to face with his recently divorced wife.

It's not. It's much worse.

Frayn opens the door and lets in Councilor Cobden and the one and only Mathilda Reid.

Chief Inspector Abberline drops his hat. He looks like he's seen a ghost. How long has it been since Reid lost his little girl, Jackson honestly doesn't know.

"Mathilda," he says, scrambling to retrieve his hat and give the girl a hug. Jackson's never seen the man express an emotion outside of his standard duo: frustration and concern.

"Uncle Frederick! It's so good to see you!"

"And you," he says, though as Jackson looks, Abberline is glaring over Mathilda's head at Councilor Cobden. She stands in the doorway of Reid's room, unsure or unable to enter; Jackson can't tell the difference. He's not sure if Cobden sees a difference in this either.

"Councilor," Jackson says, motioning for her to enter. She's as good a face as any to look after Edmund Reid. No matter what's passed between the two of them, Jackson knows she cares for him. Edmund Reid is not a man who is so easily forgotten.

Reluctantly, Jane Cobden takes a step inside. She doesn't look like she's slept much. Her eyes are red and bloodshot, puffy. But she holds her head up high in her walking gown made of a masculine plaid print with feminine lace and exact tailoring. She looks like Reid's missing half, always has to Jackson. No matter how he and Reid have fought in the past, he has always wished the two of them could make it work.

Councilor Cobden looks ready to bolt. Instead she asks, "How is he?"

"He's recovering," Jackson says, doing his best to keep that charm on. Cobden doesn't smile back at him, she might even be more off put, but Jackson continues like he hasn't seen it. "Edmund Reid's been shot twice, once in his right side and again in the skull, near the occipital lobe. Swelling's gone down, so far we've managed to stave off any infection. My opinion, and I believe our good doctor Frayn will agree, is that Reid will wake, and soon. How much he'll recover, we won't know till then."

Miss Frayn nods and walks towards them, actually moving to stand between them. Cobden forces a smile at that. So, it's not just Reid's present state, but Jackson that she takes issue with. Homer files that away for later. But he puts it aside when Mathilda Reid tugs at his waistcoat.

He can't help but think of how her father has done so, in far less adorable circumstances.

"Did you save my Daddy?"

"Yes," Abberline says, and there's a pride there that takes Jackson by surprise. Abberline has always made his dislike of Jackson very clear, the American clap doctor who would so muddy the good name of H Division. "Yes, Mathilda, he did. That is your father's good friend, Captain Homer Jackson. He is a surgeon, even a detective, when he puts his mind to it."

Jacksons makes sure there's no blood on his hands before he extends one to her. The littlest Reid ignores it in favor hugging him so tight his back gives a slight crack, still stiff from sleeping in uncomfortable chairs.

"You sir, the Reids are forever in your debt."

Jackson flusters, "Well, darlin, it wasn't just me. I had help. The chief doctor of this institute, miss Frayn here, was instrumental. As was Bennet Drake, who I believe you are already familiar with?" he asks the last while looking up at Abberline, who nods to confirm.

"Don't let him fool you," Frayn says with a quiet smile. "Captain Jackson is one of the best surgeons I've ever seen. We are lucky to have him."

Cobden sours at this. Through gritted teeth, she says, "In this, perhaps."

Mathilda, Jackson realizes, has let up to hold her father's hand, but her smile starts to waver. There's a terrifying moment, just a second, before this teenage girl might just begin to wail.

Abberline begins to step up behind her, but Jackson raises his hand, a silent plea to not. Dragging her out of here is only going to upset her more.

"Here," Jackson slowly takes Mathilda's hand, where she still holds her father's, and places them both Reid's hand and Mathilda's carefully wrapped around it on his chest. There is a blissful moment where even Jackson feels Edmund Reid draw a breath before he pulls away. "See? He breathes. He just needs his rest. He's not going anywhere, you hear me?"

Mathilda nods. A tear slips down her face and she frantically wipes it away with her free hand.

"Captain Jackson, might I have a word?" Councilor Cobden asks, tone clipped.

"Of course," he says, following her out into the hallway. Nothing good can come of this.

The second Jackson shuts the door to give Mathilda and Abberline a moment with her father under Frayn's watchful eye, Jane Cobden says, "Something must be done about Mathilda."

Jackson opens his mouth and no sound comes out. There's a lot of things he really wants to snap back with, a line about how fucking dare she after Reid trusted his child to her to pull this now, right now, when Reid isn't even conscious to make the call.

What finally comes out of his mouth is, "When did Reid see you this morning?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"My apologies, I haven't rested well, perhaps my speaking is a little slurred. When. Did you. See Reid. This morning."

Councilor Cobden takes off her hat--this too reminds him too much of Reid--and her delicate hands work the brim while she settles on an answer. "It was just after seven this morning, I believe. You need to understand, Captain, I have matters to attend to for the good of this city. I cannot be bound to a child."

If it were Jackson, he'd reschedule. He'd make it work.  Hell, if he didn't have Reid's own attempted murder to solve, he wouldn't be leaving Edmund Reid's room until the man woke. And even then, he wouldn't walk out of it till Reid could too.

"Thank you, that will help. We need to set up a timeline, figure out how this happened." He looks back over his shoulder at Abberline and Mathilda, who seem to be talking about something as they watch over the girl's father. Probably a story about Mathilda as a little girl, the apple of Reid's eye.

When he looks back at Cobden, who is studiously glaring him down like she means to stick him with a hat pin should he move wrong, he says, "I think I have an idea on who to look after Reid's girl while you...carry on with your affairs. But it will require something in return."

At this Jane Cobden gasps like she's been insulted and smacks him with her hat. He doesn't even flinch, just lets it happen.

"You haven't even heard--"

"It's not required; I know your tongue well enough. The charlatan that Reid deems worthy enough of his friendship, and you deem this a time worthy to--"

"Alright, that's enough!" Jackson puts one hand up, not both. He's not surrendering anything to her. "I'm not asking for a bribe, Jesus, Councilor. You really think so low of me? I just need you to watch Reid for a little while."

Now she looks like Jackson feels he must have, mouth agape and stumbling over her own words. Delicate hands balled up tightly around her delicate hat; at this rate she's going to crack the brim. "As I said, Captain, I have matters of great importance--"

"If Reid wakes wrong, he could die." Jackson doesn't entirely believe this, not seeing how much the swelling has receded. But he makes himself believe it, and he's certain as the Councilor turns a shade paler and her eyes go wide that he's made her believe it too. "He needs to see someone he knows well when he comes to, someone he trusts. I'm not asking for much, just a few hours. I'll have someone from H Division come by to relieve you swiftly as possible, does that satisfy?"

She doesn't even speak. Cobden shuts her mouth, lips pressed together in a thin line, and nods once.

"Alright then. And I promise you, Mathilda will be kept safe. I know just the place for her."

Jane Cobden loses her fluster at this, like a switch has been thrown, and her eyes are sharp and her mouth cruel when she hisses, "I will not have Reid's surviving daughter with whores for company while she awaits her father's return."

"And she won't," Jackson says plainly, refusing to rise to the bait. He's done this dance plenty of times with Susan to know all the steps. "I'll be taking her to stay with Rose Erskine."

Jackson gives her a moment to see if his test will hold true, if Jane Cobden will show herself to be just as bad off as any other toff prattling on about their love for progress. But the Councilor says nothing. She walks back into the room, letting the door shut behind her.

Well. He can't say the day hasn't been informative, to say the least. And it isn't even noon yet.

He's going to need a lot of coffee. 

 

While Abberline escorts Mathilda to the home of Bennet Drake, where one Rose Erskine just happens to be, Jackson heads off to Susan's home to see to what little is left of the crime scene. Drake, he is told, is there to assist him. Mathilda does not leave however without giving Jackson one more hug goodbye. She promises him that his efforts would not be forgotten.

This is the crux of Homer's problems. For better and worse, his work always has a way of making itself known. That's how Reid hired him in the first place. It's how Swift brought him on too, and how the man found him again.

He tries to focus on this and not the coupling he enjoyed with his ex-wife just a few hours ago when he walks into her home and is shown upstairs by a constable to the room where Reid's blood is thoroughly soaked into the floor.

Drake is already there, taking a sip off a flask.

Jackson tries to mimic the look of astonishment Drake often uses, eyebrows near his hairline. "You keep that up, people will start to talkin' that yours truly sets a poor example."

Drake glares at him while he twists the cap back on and pockets it. "Folks already call you a horrid example, where you can hear, often in front of ya."

Jackson just shrugs as he takes in the room, trying to look at anything other than the blood stain. If he lets his emotions catch him up, he'll miss something, and with his luck it will be the key to solving the whole damn thing. "Well, you're usually sharp enough not to...act the part."

"Tell you what, I'll put the whiskey away if you help me get to the truth of...all of this," Drake says, gesturing to the mess of the room.

"What can you tell me about how he was found?"

"Reid was found here, facing the window," Drake moves so he's just a few inches from the blood, and behind him there is another one, beside which is a pistol. The curtains are open, the afternoon light just barely getting in the room. The direction would have made it blinding at sunrise.

"Were the curtains open or closed when Reid was found?"

Drake's brow furrows in thought, "They were closed, but why-"

"The shooter was there."

Careful not to step in either blood stains, Jackson picks his way to the window, getting out a petri dish. It takes him a moment, but sure enough there is a residue staining the curtains, just about his height. With his fingernail, he scrapes some of it into the dish to test. "I'll have to get back to Leman street to be sure, but bettin' odds this is gunpowder residue." He takes another look at where Reid was shot, weighs the arithmetic of it. "This distance matches with Reid's wounds. I'd wager they took the first shot, missed, and went for the second, center mass makes for an easier target. But full curtain, dim light, not so easy to spot as they anticipated. I take it our friend Mr. Capshaw succumbed to his injuries?"

Drake nods as Jackson keeps looking. "Shotgun, Inspector Reid's own gun from Leman Street. Point blank to the chest."

With clear conviction, Jackson states, "Reid did not kill him."

Drakes mouth open wide enough for a bird to fly in before he snaps it shut again. It's good to see Jackson can still render him speechless. "Explain."

"It's simple. Would you ever know Reid to shoot a man without provocation?"

"No."

"Precisely. Reid makes his accusations at Capshaw. But Capshaw has an ace up his sleeve; a shooter in his midst. It's an easy enough thing to string along. Reid has to be shown in by their staff; everything about this is planned perfectly. When Reid threatens him with irons, the shooter does their work."

"And then what, Sherlock Holmes? How does Capshaw then die by Reid's gun?"

Jackson takes a shaky breath and steps into the Reid's bloodstain, trying to mimic it. The head, then the stomach, and as he's falling, he would have tried to take the shot. But he's disoriented. Lifts his arm, probably still fires...

"There," Jackson points to the area of the room around the mantle. "Help me search; we're looking for anything broken and disturbed."

"And this will prove?"

"Trust me, Bennito."

Drake rolls his eyes, but gets to it anyway. Jackson finds it first. "Here!" Broken porcelain on the mantle, and more on the floor. "A vase perhaps?" There’s a blue and white porcelain vase remaining on the opposite end of the mantle; it could be it’s twin. He’s cursing himself for not taking note of these things the few times he’s been here.

Drake shrugs. "A broken vase could mean anything. They could have fought."

Jackson shakes his head, sifting through the mess. "That's a lie and you know it. Reid didn't come here spoilin for a fight; he came to serve a warrant--here!" Jackson holds up a piece of metal. "That is buckshot. If Reid had shot Capshaw, all of this would still be in him." Jackson doesn't even finish his theory; he takes out a butterfly knife and inspects the wall above the mantle. It's only a moment before he finds the spray. "Here, see? We need this photographed before I pull it out. Every piece of this has to be by the book, Drake."

When Drake doesn't say anything, Jackson looks over his shoulder at the Sergeant; the man looks poleaxed. "You're saying that Reid was not shot by Capshaw, and that Reid also did not kill him?"

"That's the ticket, knew you'd get there eventually. Someone standing behind Capshaw and in those curtains shot Reid. Reid went down, gets one round off, but he's already done in from his wounds, so the shot goes wide, here."

Drake shakes his head. "Abberline is not going to like this."

Jackson just continues collecting dish after dish of evidence. He's going to find who shot Edmund Reid, and if law doesn't do something about it, then he'll deal with the bastard himself. "Abberline never likes anything I do, Drake. That's what makes proving him wrong so particularly satisfyin'."   

 

At the station house, Jackson finds his theory confirmed. It only takes a passing glance to see that Capshaw has no gunpowder residue on his hands or his clothing. “It’s like I told you, Drake,” he says around a cigarette, “Capshaw is not your killer, at least not in this.”

Drake goes from shock to anger, an open mouth that purses in a thin line, hands that turn to fists at his sides. And yet, he says nothing.

Jackson has to ask. “He is watched, our good Inspector?”

Drake nods once. “He is. Artherton, to relieve the Councilor and protect Reid both.”

“And he’s armed? With more than a billy club?”

“He is. We had to secret it in; your former wife did not take well to our sergeant carrying a loaded shotgun into her women’s clinic.”

Jackson frowns around his smoke. “She came to visit Reid?”

Drake cocked an eyebrow at him. “He is a tenant of her hospital and was shot in her home. Is it so peculiar?”

Jackson’s frown deepens as he walks around Capshaw’s corpse. He still needs to do the autopsy. But first, his clothes are key evidence. They’ll need to be removed and properly maintained if they’re to be put to trial. “She’s a suspect in this case, Drake. I find it hard to believe that Capshaw would act without Susan’s knowledge. She’s too sharp by far.”

Drake takes out that flask again and takes a swig, offers it to Jackson. This time, Jackson obliges him. “Captain, I… I would that your ties in this were less complex. But I must remind you that it is you who sent Reid on this path.”

“Hey! Now you listen, Reid and I have had our tosses, but I would never act in any manner that would see our Inspector come to harm.”

“I do not suspect you! Captain, however, she is your ex-wife, and he your turbulent boss. Fred Best, you sought him for this evidence. Why was Best on the hunt for the master behind the train crash? I would think a simple newspaper man would let it rest.”

Jackson’s frown deepens evermore. He stubbs out his cigarette, and motions for Drake to close the door.

Drake cocks an eyebrow at him, but does as he asks. Jackson hears the familiar sound of it as he pulls something sharp and white free from a shoulder of Capshaw’s jacket. When he holds it to the light, it shines with a fine luster. Porcelain. He sets it in yet another petri dish, scribbles a note with his suspicions. This is what it means to be Reid, he thinks, building up the case piece by piece, capturing every last shred until he would know the truth with absolute certainty.

“Best loved someone on that train.” Jackson says when he rights himself again, back aching.

Drake, for the first time today, laughs. “Best? You’re sure? I would not have thought the man had feelings for anyone, save for that bloody print of his.”

“A man could say the same of Reid and his work,” Jackson snaps. Best is an ally in this, and he won’t see the man insulted. Not when Best has risked everything to get this far, all without putting a word of it to print. “But Reid is well known to you and I, and Best is well known to me. It is that devotion which has driven him to seek out the criminal behind the death of his beloved.”

“And what possessed mister Best to give it to you?”

“Well, I trained my gun on him,” Jackson shrugs.

“You—”

“He threatened me first.”

“Explain yourself.”

“Best thought me Susan’s creature in this. I suspect his goal was to cast my doubts onto her.”

“And he…did so?” Drake asks.

Jackson nods. “Yeah, yeah he did.”

A silence grows between them, slowly and then heavily.

“Fred Best,” Drake begins, “in his efforts to solve the murder of his betrothed, brings his theories to you, Susan’s ex-husband and Reid’s sharpest ally. You believe him, his theories appear sound. When he produces evidence, you deliver it to Inspector Reid, who in turn serves the warrant for Capshaw. Capshaw intends an assassin to be rid of the Inspector, but something goes awry. Reid survives, Capshaw is dead, and the assassin eludes us.”

Jackson nods, scanning Capshaw’s coat clothing one final time for even the smallest scrap of the truth. “That’s the whole of it, yes,” he lies.

Drake leans over Capshaw and squints, as if in doing so the corpse will give his secrets up to them both. “There is a piece to this we do not kin. Perhaps you were watched, followed. Reid would have known that Capshaw could only be taken by surprise, the man plays a chess game with us all. And yet, Capshaw was not alarmed. Reid would not be so afflicted, the Inspector would be well had Capshaw not known…”

“God damnit!” Jackson erupts. She has played him. Again. Perhaps he is her creature after all. “He knew. He knew because I confronted Susan.”

“You what?!”

“I called on her to meet me at a pub, somewhere public where shooting me wouldn’t be an option. And I confronted her with what Best told me.”

“You think her involved in this?”

Jackson takes a deep breath and rubs at his temple so hard it hurts. “I don’t know. She didn’t deny it, instead she talked of business, how hard the time had been without me. God damnit, that…that woman, she told him. So she knew, she knew that Capshaw had done this. Fuck!”

“What was your end in confronting her, Jackson?”

Jackson swings and nearly slams his fist on the operating table, stopping within a hair. He can’t. He needs his hand. Edmund Reid needs both his hands. He cannot lose himself now. “I had hoped to see through her. She lied to me about Reid’s girl, I had hoped to get a glimpse at what else she was hiding. But she,” Jackson takes a breath, fists clenched on the operating table. “Goddamnit, Bennito. I swear, I am not her creature by choice. This is not my will, but Susan…”

Drake’s mouth purses before thinning into line. He’s still, so still Jackson thinks Drake is going to punch him. Instead, Drake says, “She seeks to use you to her own ends.”

Jackson nods. He can’t say it out loud. He’s not sure he’ll ever be able to. But Drake has begun Jackson on a dark line of conjecture and it brings Jackson to a horrifying conclusion: “If Capshaw had survived, if his plan had worked, his next target would be me.”

Drake’s eyes go very, very wide. “Silence the whole line of inquiry. Best too, if they could follow the thread back to him.”

Jackson begins the obnoxious task of stripping the body of a man he’d like to resurrect just to shoot him himself. “All of this means nothing Bennito. We can’t do a damn thing without proof. The papers I brought to Reid showed Capshaw transferring a small amount of US bearer bonds to cash, but the rest remain unaccounted for. We gotta find em if we want to lay this truth to the rest.”

“And what of your estranged wife?”

Jackson swallows hard as he shoves the corpse over to get its arm out of the jacket. “My former wife divorced me three years ago, Sergeant Drake. What maladies befall her currently are no concern of mine.”

Drake reaches across the table and lays a hand on Jackson’s shoulder. The move surprises him, but then it shouldn’t. He’s seen the man do the same for Reid more than once. Drake is not as tough as he appears, he is merely economical in whom he bares it to. “I nearly took that for truth, and I akin one day it will be thus. So, Captain Fancy Pants, where are we to begin?”

Jackson sighs. “Now, I get to confirm the manner in which Capshaw expired. Call Abberline in; he’ll want to know the theory at least.”

Drake nods. “Right. Let's omit the theories on your former wife, and provide only what is known to us.”

“That Capshaw didn’t kill Reid, nor he Capshaw.”

Drake shakes his head. “Abberline is going to have a fit over this.”

And he does.

Capshaw’s autopsy reveals nothing of import. Jackson knows his last meal, that he was in good health, and that the trajectory of the shot doesn’t make sense--which he already knew. He’s seen Reid in action enough times to know how the man handles his gun; the shot is far too high. Reid aims low; center mass. He’s strong enough that he doesn’t need to brace the gun on his shoulder.

He wonders if the shooter bears a mark from the kickback, but that could be anyone. Jackson is no closer to pinning down a suspect when he calls it a day. Abberline is in Reid’s office, going over Reid’s case notes on the train robbery so far. Jackson almost leaves him to it, but he raps on the door once anyway. Less reason for Abberline to be cross with him, the better.

Abberline waves him in.

“And your findings?”

Abberline, for all of the old man’s strengths, still can’t stand the sight of the dead room. He handled it well when Jackson presented the lack of gunpowder as the last nail in the coffin on the original theory, which is now to dust. But then, Capshaw wasn’t slit open from end to end.

“The man is as secretive in death as he was in life. I can confirm that he died of a shotgun blast at close range. I can tell you that the angle of it doesn’t  fit with Reid either. Oh, and I tested the fragments I pulled from his jacket--they match the porcelain found on the vase. This would substantiate that Reid went down first. The vase shattered as his shot went wide, the fragments imbedded in the clothing of the then still living Capshaw.”

“No new leads?”

Jackson shakes his head. “I’m to the clinic to keep watch over Reid.”

“I shall send a Constable to mind the door.”

Jackson doesn’t speak, just gives him a look and shows Abberline his gun.

“Oh yes, and what good will that do you Renegade, with your eyes shut? Your diligence is admirable but you will eventually succumb, and as your efforts have shown us, Reid’s assassin walks these streets still.”

Jackson nods, lets go of his jacket to conceal his weapon once more. “And Drake?”

“Quelling the riots. Word is out that Reid has been felled, and by the mastermind of the 55 no less. Whitechapel believes him as good as dead.”

Jackson takes a harsh breath and shakes his head. “He’s no more dead than you or I, I can promise you that.”

Abberline pauses, pours another finger of the Scotch. “How many times does this sum to, you saving Reid’s life?”

Jackson shrugs. “I don’t keep track.”

He does. The answer is six.

“Right. You best be off, I suspect the riots will only grow worse with the hour.”

“I’ll send word when he wakes,” Jackson says and closes the door behind him.

Abberline wasn’t kidding, the streets are a mess. From the doorway of one bar he can hear a man singing a song of Edmund Reid “a man of Whitechapel,” but in the distance there’s the sound of glass breaking, a woman yelling, men laughing. It itches at him to help, but not this evening. The constables can handle that; he is needed elsewhere.

Doctor Frayn has already gone home for the day when he arrives, but she has left her notes for him. Reid’s bandages have been changed, wounds cleaned. There’s a worry for infection in his side, swelling and redness. But the swelling about his head continues to lower. Frayn has recorded the levels every two hours; he appreciates her diligence.

Artherton brightens up the moment Jackson walks through the door to Reid’s room, Frayn’s notes in hand.

“Captain! Do you bring any news?”

Jackson does an awkward shrug, pulls a face that says yes and no. “Our suspicions are confirmed. Capshaw did not shoot Reid, nor did Reid manage to kill him.”

“Christ alive.”

“But that stays between us, ya hear me?” This is the talk that Abberline had had with Jackson when presented with the facts as they were. “Whoever the killer is, I would prefer them believing that they are above suspicion. We spook em, they could turn tail and leave Whitechapel for good.”

Artherton nods. “Of course, I am no stranger to maintaining station secrecy.”

“Right,” Jackson says, finally letting himself go to Reid’s side. He checks Reid’s pulse without pausing to think about it. “I know Reid fought to keep a lot of the Ripper details from Best and the papers. Press regardless, you should get home Artherton. Streets are likely to blow up at any moment, it's a damn powder keg out there.”

“Right,” Artherton says, rising from his chair with a grimace.

Jackson resumes inspecting Reid’s injuries, checking his side for signs of infection, his forehead for sweat or the heat of a fever. But Artherton still hasn’t left; the door has not opened and closed.

“Is it true...what they say?”

Jackson looks up at him. “About Reid? No. Look, he’s got no signs of infection, the swelling about his head is lesser still, and he’s breathing. He’s going to wake up, that much you can tell whomever you like.”

“Right. Evening, Captain.”

“Take care of yourself, Artherton.”

The second the man leaves, shotgun in hand, Jackson pulls a chair up beside Reid, lays his gun on the edge of the bed aimed at the door, and lights a smoke.

“You know,” Jackson says, lips moving around the cigarette as he checks over Frayn’s notes again to insure nothing has slipped his attention, “you could save a lot of property damage if you’d just wake up. I know you’re not a man to be bribed, but your beloved borough is going to hell in a handbasket just at the thought of you perishing. You’d please a lot of folks if you’d just open your eyes. Reid.”

When he looks, Reid isn’t moving like he did this morning. No quirk of the mouth or a grumble. Dread sinks in. This is what everyone has felt upon looking at Reid this day. Jackson has been able to see him with at least a faint hint of the man he is. But this...he’s nearly lifeless.

The tears that Jackson didn’t shed this morning begin to fall and there’s not a thing he can to deter them.

“Reid...I know you’re in there...Christ. You gotta wake up, Reid. I don’t care if you’re a cripple or if you’re even half the man you were. Half of you is still worth more than...God damnit Reid. You just need to wake up. Whatever happens, I can handle it, I’ll take care of it. Even if you lose all memory of the man you were, of me, I’ll help you bring it back. I will fix you, I promise. I will not rest until I see you well again. I’ll shoulder the weight. All you need to do is wake up, that’s all. You wake up, and I swear to you I’ll take care of the rest. Just...just wake up.”

Homer, who had made a vow to himself not to touch Reid more than necessary for his care, takes one of Reid’s hands and gives it a squeeze. The man isn’t cold, his hand is warm. Heart finally making enough blood to make up for the deficit he’s lost, perhaps. Whatever the case, it gives him hope, helps Jackson to take a breath, and another, and another. Eventually, he lets go, lights up another smoke, and keeps breathing.

He nearly takes the kid’s head off when a constable knocks on the door to Reid’s room. He drops off supper for Jackson, when prompted the kid reveals that it's from Abberline, who would have him fed and ready to work.

Jackson doesn’t even question it, just thanks him and takes the supper, devouring it while he reads the text he lifted from Frayn’s office, on treating amnesia and motor control lost due to brain injury.

When Jackson can’t remember what he read on the last page, he closes the book and starts to loosen his tie. The fabric is thick with a dried layer of something. His hands comes away with the distinct burgundy brick of dried blood. He’s been making the rounds with Reid’s blood about him the whole day.

Jackson fastens the clean end to Reid’s wrist and the filthy one to his own.

He doesn’t think he’ll be able to rest, too busy worried about Edmund Reid. But Jackson falls asleep at once to the sounds of rioting just outside the window.  

He doesn’t sleep for altogether long. Homer Jackson is not one to be plagued by nightmares; he’s had years enough of substance abuse to be well informed on how to keep those at bay. But he wakes up a few short hours later in a panic, his spine ramrod straight in his fears as he snaps awake. The worst part is, he can’t tell what woke him. He wasn’t lying to miss Frayn this morning; there are very few things which can wake him from a dead sleep.

But there’s no crash, no yelling, no gun shot. There’s a new constable standing outside and the only sounds are the rioting, louder and more insistent than they were when he fell asleep some three hours ago, according to his pocket watch. The sound of breaking glass from the street beyond is intermittent with the whistle blowing of the H-Division coppers, but it's not that loud, not loud enough to wake him.

Jackson shoves a hand through his hair, trying to recall if he had a dream--it's rare but it happens--which could have woke him when he notices it.

Reid’s breathing has changed. There’s an instant of panic, of _oh Christ_ where Jackson wonders if what woke him is the sound of Reid dying, of his lungs choking on something that he missed somehow in his examinations, in all of their careful notes.

It’s not.

Jackson grabs hold of Reid, one hand on the man’s scarred shoulder and the other on Reid’s hand that’s tied to his own. He slows his own breathing, and he listens.

That breathing isn’t laboring. It’s just louder, a little more insistent, healthier.

Edmund Reid is no longer unconscious.

Jackson jumps to his feet, checking Reid’s pulse. That heartbeat isn’t just faster, its too fast. While he’s happy to feel it beating at steadier rate, this is bordering onto a fit.

“Reid? Reid, it’s alright, you’re safe. Everything’s alright. It’s Jackson, Captain Jackson. If you don’t...we’re friends Reid. Good friends. You’ve been shot, but you’re recovering. You’re in a hospital. Your daughter is alive and she’s safe; she’s staying with Rose and Bennett. There is no cause for fear, Reid, I swear it. I’m not going anywhere, I’m your doctor after all, and we’ve got a constable posted at your door.”

That’s when Edmund Reid opens his eyes.

Homer Jackson just about weeps with relief. He doesn’t like to admit it to himself, will never speak it aloud, but there were moments before falling asleep a few hours ago where he had all but convinced himself he would never see those blue eyes again.

“There you are,” Homer says. His voice cracks, but he coughs to clear it and continues on. There are a million things he wants to say, but they’re selfish things. Homer’s needs do not matter, not here. Edmund is his patient now and Jackson has to treat him as such. “One cozy hospital room, as promised, and one Yankee clap doctor. Do you know who I am? Do you know your own name?”

Reid takes in a sharp breath through his nose, mouth not moving. His eyes flit about, taking in the room, before settling on Jackson again. Jackson’s hand is still on Reid’s neck, and he can feel the Inspector’s heart rate jump again.

“Woah now, easy. Easy Reid, I need you to try and stay calm for me. I know you must be spooked somethin’ fierce, but I promise you that you are safe.”

It doesn’t seem like Reid can speak, which is not as uncommon as a person might think. Often times when the body first comes to, it’s not quite back together just yet. From what little Jackson understands of the workings of the human mind, the brain is not an engine; it does not fire up and move every part swiftly the moment it is kicked to starting. There’s a delay, like sending a telegraph.

“You need your rest Reid, don’t fear this. This is just the mind slowly getting its bearings. Much like a man whose been at sea too long, you need to get your legs back under you.”

Reid’s gaze meanders again as he he looks down at his wrist, where he’s bound to Jackson’s own arm by way of a fairly filthy tie.

“That’s nothin, its for me should I succumb to rest. Lets me know if you go into a fit, so I can wake promptly and tend to you.

Jackson can feel the inspector’s heartbeat start to slow as Reid takes another measured breath.

“Can you blink for me? If you can, that will be of great use to us right now, let's say twice for yes, once for no. Do you know who I am, do you remember me?”

Reid stares him down in that way the Inspector always does, like he means to find every damn crack and crevice and pick him apart, divulge every secret and care he has. It’s the same look that the inspector employs when he desperately needs Jackson in his dead room. He blinks twice.

Jackson laughs, breathless in his relief. “Thank God for that. Alright, I know you can’t move, and that’s okay, it's nothin to worry yourself over. But can you tell me if you feel everything?” Jackson reluctantly withdraws his hands from Reid’s person, unknots the tie about his wrist, and walks down to the edge of the opposite end of the bed. Moving slowly, so as not to startle him, he wraps his hand around Reid’s right foot. “Can you feel this?”

Reid blinks twice.

“That’s great! My suspicions are confirmed. You were shot, its okay if you don’t remember, but you were lucky. The bullet didn’t go near your spine. If you can feel, you’ll be able to move eventually. But Reid, you’ve been out for not even a day. I am... It is a very positive sign that you’re back with us so soon, but you still need rest. Lots of it. Your mind is addled; it needs to heal.”

Jackson asks him if he thirsts or hungers, but Reid declines both. Jackson checks his temperature again, as Reid has begun to perspire, but it seems to be more in the efforts to stay conscious and communicating than any fever. Still, Jackson monitors the symptoms closely for any change that may require further treatment if left unattended.

In his efforts to keep Reid calm, Jackson tells him all that he missed. How Abberline met Mathilda Reid for the first time--”Poleaxed Reid, positively poleaxed. Never thought I’d see anything like it”--to the riots outside, as a particularly loud crash causes Reid to startle. Jackson takes care to avoid topics which hold the chance of sending Reid to hysterics, such as talk of how the inspector acquired his injuries, the case, the fact that the assassin has not yet been found.

It’s as Jackson is telling him about Rose’s visit to the playhouse with Mathilda, who apparently has taken a liking to playing in their costume area, that Reid’s eyes close and he drifts off once more. Reid’s breath is gentle but heavy, and his pulse is strong. Jackson wonders if he’ll snore.

Then he calls for the constable to ask where the kitchen is in this hospital. Somewhere in this place, there has to be a way to make a cup of coffee.

Homer Jackson will not be sleeping anytime soon.

**Author's Note:**

> The graphic depiction of violence warning is present due to Reid's surgery being described in thorough detail. It's over 4k alone. If you don't like head wounds and period surgery stuff, maybe gloss over it. Otherwise, this fic would get a T rating.
> 
> Part 2 will be up by June at the latest, though I'm hoping for May, medical care willing. That will be one whole plot arc. I am planning on this being a series, so there will be at least more complete story with its own plot arc in the fall/winter, as well as a prequel fic and an epilogue. 
> 
> If you want more historical gay things, come find me at ahandomebabe.tumblr.com


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